Incredible first open wheel Lotus adventure. - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

t walgamuth · #1 10-18-2019, 08:03 AM

I have not been keeping my story telling up to snuff lately. I read the facts of this story from Octane issue 195. I will paraphrase and summarize but it is a true story.

In 1956 after astonishing results from his hand built Lotus 6 and 11 sports car Colin Chapman decided to build a single seat race car. It was known as the Lotus 12. It incorporated many innovations including using the engine as a stressed member and the wavy magnesium wheels that Lotus race cars wore for many years after.
The first open wheel Lotus was built for formula 2 and had a climax engine which was light as a feather and made maybe 150 hp. It was chassis #351, built for Ernie, Chapman ran it in formula 2 for a few "shakedown" races and delivered it to Ernie Tadgell a well heeled man who ran a crop dusting company in Australia with his partner Austin Miller.

Both men had served in ww2 in the Royal air force. By 1957 they were running 32 planes in their business. They decided they needed two new planes from England, Prospector PC9s.
They also bought two race cars, Tadgell bought Lotus #351, Miller bought a Cooper Type 41 F2 car.
So they flew to England to pick up their new planes and race cars.

Their method of getting all their new purchases home is a story that puts all my silly car adventures to shame.

Aussies are known for their frugality and these fellows were no exception.
The PC9 was a fine crop dusting plane which was not equipped with radar nor much of any instruments for flying long distance. They had just one short range radio so they could not talk back and forth either. They had to stay in visual contact for the entire trip.
They disassembled the race cars, putting all the smaller parts in the planes and wrapping the frames with greased paper to ship by sea (avoiding taxes on each end of the journey by listing the race car parts as "crop dusting equipment").
To reduce expenses they took on a passenger each for the trip back to Australia even though the planes were already overloaded. The passengers helped tremendously with map reading and landmark spotting. They got sponsorship from Shell oil who provided fuel at frequent stops along the way, arranged in advance by Shell.
They took off, using a collection of maps from Shell oil and the British Army to navigate. They followed highways, railroads and rivers trying to stay above land as much as possible.

The trip took 6 weeks. Think about that...6 weeks.

So they put the cars back together and began racing. The Lotus eventually blew its climax engine comprehensively. Tadgell was undaunted. He cut the frame in half and added 6" to the frame to accommodate the flat 6, 7.9 liter Lycomming aircraft engine which had more than triple the horsepower of the original climax engine. The gearbox was changed and the rear end as well, but the car used so much fuel he had to add large pannier tanks hanging from the sides between the wheels to make it through the races. (I bet you can see where this story ends).
So during practice for its first race the car had a frame or drive train failure leading to a crash. It caught fire. Tadgell got out safely with burns but the car when its magnesium wheels caught fire could not be doused and was soon reduced to a pile of non combustible bits, which were disposed of.
The Cooper was run more or less continuously and still exists, campaigning in historic events.

Someone should make a movie about this.

engatwork · #2 10-26-2019, 08:33 AM

Quote:

They followed highways, railroads and rivers all across the Atlantic

This one has me somewhat perplexed

.

Good story. Thanks for sharing.

t walgamuth · #3 10-26-2019, 04:04 PM

Ok I fixed that ambiguous part.

Thanks for reading the story.

Air&Road · #4 11-02-2019, 11:06 AM

Yeah Jim, I was thinking he meant flying across water overweight. The whole thing seemed nuts.

Tom, speaking of “they should make a movie” did you know that there is a movie coming out about Carroll Shelby?

It will be a hit here. I moved to this community not long after he died, but found out only recently that he was just one of the guys at the airport and knew most of my friends on a first name basis. He was born and lived only about ten miles from here. I really wish I could have known him. I hear great stories about him and he was basically just a good old easy going East Texas boy. I know a guy real well who grew up with him and they were very close friends.

My favorite Colin Chapman story was during the early development of the Esprit, the engineers were showing him the drawings of the rear suspension. He objected to a third member claiming that it was unnecessary. They showed him their stress calculations and he still insisted it was unnecessary. They eliminated it and got it ready for test driving. He came into town for a short time between formula one races. He jumped in the car and roared down the road. The engineers jumped in another car to follow. They soon came upon the car broken beside the road. The rear suspension without the third member had failed. They walked over while he was examining the structure and one of them said I guess we needed the extra member. Colin said something like; “that will bloody well teach you not to listen to me,” after which he jumped in the car they had driven up in and roared away leaving them to figure out how to get back to the shop with nothing but the broken car.

t walgamuth · #5 11-02-2019, 11:17 AM

The story with cars and aircraft checks several boxes with you Larry. I have since discovered they must have flown over Asia to get back to Australia. About 10,000 miles vs 15,000 if they had flown down the Americas like I assumed first. I'm a little vague on distances between Oz and SA.

Apparently Chapman and Shelby had the gift of gab in common as well as being a bit on the shady side when it came to meeting all their commitments.

Air&Road · #6 11-02-2019, 11:53 AM

I’ll have to ask around about the shady claim with Carroll. There are some pretty major league entrepreneurs around here that knew him well and I know them well enough to ask them about that. He donated a ton of money for various worthwhile endeavors in the area including a prolific auto tech teaching facility at the JC.

When Carroll’s wife perished in a car accident, Lee Iacocca sent his personal Gulfstream to pick her up and take her home for services and burial then back to pick up Iacocca and his family to bring them for the services and then Carroll back home. Iacocca was in Hawaii at the time so that meant a LOT of EXPEN$IVE flying. This would indicate that Iacocca didn’t think of him as a bum.

t walgamuth · #7 11-02-2019, 06:58 PM

I never said he was a bum. I imagine the shady part {if it happened} happened back when Shelby did not have two nickels to rub together.

I did a few things I am not proud of back when I was short on cash and long on bills.